Reflecting on Destiny of Muslims of Crimea

Exactly millenium ago, in 1010, the overwhelming majority of the population of Naddnepryanshchina converted to Islam... Traces of berbers are found across the whole Ukraine... From folklore, Caliph Garun al-Rashid is known under the name of Snake (Zmey) Gorynych...

Donbass is for a long time the place of compact residing of the Tatars who are practicing Islam, and the city of Sverdlovsk in Lugansk area is not an exception.

It's not the first place you'd imagine encountering Muslims. But Ecuador has its own confident community.

Doctors, engineers and other professionals make the bulk of people embracing Islam in Romania, where the Muslim minority is already enjoying full rights.

The origins of Islam in Chile are not very clear. It is known that in 1854 two “Turks” resided in the country, a situation that was repeated in the censuses of 1865 and 1875. Their country of origin is not known, just that they were natives of some territory of the immense Ottoman Empire.

One of the Ukrainian hetmans was a Muslim. He converted to Islam not from tactical reasons, but having learnt the truth of belief of Allah the Supreme.

There is a suburb Staroselye in Bakhchisarai. Once it was a settlement Salachik, but after deportation in 1944 the majority of the Crimean-Tatar names have disappeared from the map of Crimea. Five centuries ago Salachik has been chosen by the second Crimean khan Mengly І Gyrey for the erection of "the temple of science" - in this way noble descendants call Zyndzhyrly-madrasa hitherto.

"1740th years were the time of a fierce persecution of Islam… In the Kazan province by June, 1744 from 536 existing mosques 418 were destroyed; they refrained from utter annihilation just because the rumors about it could reach Moslem countries and cause destruction of churches there, too". (V.V. Bartold, volume 9, page 409-410)

The increase in quantity of followers of Islam among the Slavic population of the Earth, and also growth of activity and influence of the Slavs-Muslim in the society draws attention both of their coreligionists, and experts, observing the process "from outside". Hardly anyone is surprised, for example, with a word-combination "Russian Muslim". However, very few people know, that the phenomenon of conversion of the Slavs to Islam has deep roots and begins hardly probable not with the first years of existence of Islamic Caliphate. About destinies of ancestors of the modern Russians, Ukrainians, Serbs and other people in the Muslim lands in the Middle Ages will be the speech in given article.